Cook Island's PM Mark Brown and China's Ambassador to the Pacific Qian Bo. Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Lydia Lewis
When it comes to worries about Chinese influence in the Pacific, the recent rifts between New Zealand and two of our neighbours are only the tip of the iceberg.
Over the past few weeks, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has had public tiffs with the leaders of both the Cook Islands and Kiribati.
The issues: first Peters put foreign aid to Kiribati under review after President Taneti Maamau cancelled a meeting with him. Then this week, Peters accused Cook Islands PM Mark Brown of 'blindsiding' both New Zealand and his own people with a trip to Beijing.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump's plans to cut funds to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are temporarily on hold, with a judge blocking Trump's move to put staff on leave late last week. But the Inspector General of the agency was fired yesterday after releasing a report criticising Trump, and for those following the developments closely, the future of the agency looks shaky.
So what do some diplomatic dramas between New Zealand and Kiribati and the Cook Islands have to do with the US cancelling its foreign aid programme?
"It's not a separate story," says Newsroom managing editor Jonathan Milne. "It's the same story."
That story, in a word, is China.
Steven Ratuva, director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury, tells The Detail China will be watching and hoping that there will be more space for its intervention in the Pacific.
"And certainly that's what we're going to see in the future with more Chinese engagement in the Pacific, particularly at a time when the US engagement is beginning to thin out," he says.
Already, this story has been playing out across the region, seen in Peters' irritation over Mark Brown's meeting in Beijing - where he has travelled to sign a strategic partnership agreement with China. Similarly, in the conflict with Kiribati, part of the frustration is a strained diplomacy, when it appears Chinese relations with Kiribati are going well.
"Now, with the US likely to withdraw aid from the region, China's place will be easier to secure," says Ratuva.
It's a sentiment echoed by Trump's opponents within the US.
"China doesn't even need to fight for their influence around the world now because of our own effort. We're doing China's work for them," US Senator Andy Kim said in an interview with NBC News earlier this week.
But the US reputation in the Pacific is already poor, says Ratuva.
"Biden was able to engage in a significant way... but of course the money that was promised - $800 million for 10 years - hasn't come in and now of course they can forget about it. So all these false promises have given the United States a very, very bad name in the Pacific.
"China does the opposite. It promises and it delivers."
With these shifting dynamics, New Zealand's spot in the region is also likely to change.
"New Zealand will have to work very hard in order to be able to maintain its significance in the Pacific," says Ratuva.
And this is also likely to mean changing relationships with China and the US.
"I think in recent years some of the human rights abuses and flouting of democratic norms that we've seen in China... have made it a lot harder to defend close relations with China," says Milne.
"But at the same time I would say the volatility we're currently seeing in domestic and international politics from the United States is making that very difficult as well.
"Some of us would take the view that some of the Trump policies do impinge on human rights, both within the United States and further afield. So I think it becomes a more difficult conversation around who has the moral high ground. I don't think it's that simple anymore, I don't think the United States is the upholder of democratic principles for the world anymore.
"And if that's the case, if both of them are deeply flawed on human rights and adherence to basic democracy, then perhaps it comes down to which is more reliable and easier to deal with, and who you know will stick to their word, and on that front it's probably China."
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